Exploring Bias in Student Evaluations: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

• Published in: PS, political science & politics Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 270 - 274
• Main Authors: Chávez, Kerry, Mitchell, Kristina M.W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Cambridge University Press 01.04.2020
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Bias; College faculty; Coordinators; Cultural identity; Disproportionate Representation; Distance learning; Educational evaluation; Ethnicity; Evaluative Thinking; Evidence; Females; Gender; Gender Bias; Government (Administrative Body); Internet; Males; Minority & ethnic groups; Minority groups; Online Courses; Perceptions; Personnel Selection; Quasi-experimental methods; Race; Racial Bias; Racial Identification; Racism; Research design; Sex Fairness; Stereotypes; Student Attitudes; Student Evaluation; Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance; Students; Teacher Effectiveness; Teacher evaluations; Teaching; Tenure; United States > US; Texas
• DOI: 10.1017/S1049096519001744
• ISSN: 1049-0965

Research continues to accumulate showing that in instructor evaluations students are biased against women. This article extends these analyses by examining the dynamics between evaluations and gender and race/ethnicity. In a quasi-experimental design, faculty members teaching identical online courses recorded welcome videos that were presented to students at the course onset, constituting the sole exposure to perceived gender and race/ethnicity. This enables exploration of whether and to what degree the instructors’ characteristics influenced student evaluations, even after holding all other course factors constant. Findings show that instructors who are female and persons of color receive lower scores on ordinal student evaluations than those who are white males. Overall, we add further evidence to a growing literature calling for student evaluations of teaching (SETs) reform and extend it to encompass the effects on racial/ethnic minorities in addition to women.